CAPTIVITY 37
the new empire that would grow from victory. He
spoke in a Western language of Western ideas > but he
was Eastern in mentality and habits.
We came out of the Anatolian plateau down on to
the shores of the Sea of Marmora, running through the
rich little villages that are grouped on its northern
shore, till we saw before us St. Sophia and the Great
Seraglio and Stambul slumbering in the late autumn
sun,
I was taken to the great hospital of Skutari that faces
Stambul across the mouth of the Bosphorus. In my
ward were a dozen Turkish officers suffering from foul
and loathsome diseases, and a Russian Tartar officer, a
wild, mad fellow with a good heart. Close by were a
number of British soldiers with amputated arms and
legs waiting to be exchanged. They were the victims
of a reprisal. The Ottoman Government had heard of
some arrangement for the Turkish prisoners in Egypt
of which they did not approve. To square matters
they ordered these poor wounded prisoners to be put
into an Armenian church, their bandages removed and
to be left to fend for themselves. There was an Austra-
lian who had been wounded in the ankle. In the church
the wound gangrened and his leg had to be amputated
just below the hip. Now they were full of good cheer
and had asserted their independence and bullied the
hospital staff. But the arrangements for the exchange
fell through, and we prepared to be sent to a prison
camp.
It was a terrible place, that hospital. As two Ger-
man sisters supervised an army of cleaners who were